These "October Horror Movie Challenge" threads are for the discussion of the films in the 31 FILM SUBSET list.

The plan is for everyone to watch this film on the October day in the thread title, and to start discussing it the morning of the following day.
You may start discussion early if you want, but the preferred plan is for this to be as much of a group exercise as possible, with all of us viewing it "together" and discussing after.

Of course, you are totally encouraged to participate in these threads even if you haven't watched the movie on the designated day.
Even if you haven't watched it in years, or are not participating in the Horror Challenge, please feel free to chime in.

Spoiler tags are unnecessary in here, so if you have yet to see the filmBEWARE OF SPOILERS._______________________________________

The Rabid DVD is not a great copy anyway, it's non-anamorphic with muted colors (perhaps this is an intentional design of the film) so YouTube isn't that far out of an option if you need to resort to online streaming. Rabid is one movie that's begging for a high definition release.

The Rabid DVD is not a great copy anyway, it's non-anamorphic with muted colors (perhaps this is an intentional design of the film) so YouTube isn't that far out of an option if you need to resort to online streaming. Rabid is one movie that's begging for a high definition release.

2. 90% of the movies released by 21st Century Film Corporation are junk.

3. 90% of mainstream movies starring former porn actresses are junk.

Rabid definitely falls into the other 10% of #3 above--Marilyn Chambers is actually quite good in it. Overall, I don't think that it's quite as strong as They Came from Within, but it's still an enjoyable film. My main issue with the film is that the pacing feels off to me--it seems as if the Montreal outbreak occurs far too rapidly.

As for the things that I like about Rabid, the taxi stunt was quite accomplished for the budget that Cronenberg had. And I love the music--the "score," such as it is, is made up of cues from a production music library, much like Night of the Living Dead and parts of Dawn of the Dead. The moody and autumnal-feeling main theme showed up in several PSAs in the late '70s, so I'd heard the music before I ever saw the film:

I really like the shots of 1976 Montreal, especially Chambers's walk downtown (where she strolls by a Carrie poster) and the mall sequence, which reminds me (again) of Dawn of the Dead and even more of Blue Sunshine.

I happened to watch Shivers the other night not even realizing how these two are related. I wasn't a fan of Shivers as I felt I was just watching an early Troma movie that was a little too slow for its own good. A crawling turd terrorizes an apartment community. Dull chaos ensues.

Rabid was a little better to watch but still suffered from pacing issues in my opinion. Chambers really did put on a good performance and damn, she looked good back then. I always get her and Linda Lovelace confused for some reason.

Anyway, I am not a big Cronenberg fan and this was just meh, for me. Not a waste but it didn't grab as I hoped it would.

My rating for Shivers: ** out of *****
My rating for Rabid: **1/2 out of *****

This was my second time watching Rabid and I didn't enjoy it as much as I remember enjoying it the first time I saw it. I think it's a decent film with a interesting method of zombifying and a great score, though I'm a little disappointed to find out the music wasn't composed specifically for the movie.

Marilyn Chambers did a good job with her role and she was so damn sexy at the time. Seeing her on screen helped to make the experience more enjoyable for me.